The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,163
I was on a classified operation – officially I wasn’t even in Pakistan.’
‘I’m so sorry. It must have been terrible. I’m sorry.’
He wiped his eyes, and sighed. ‘Thank you. After that . . . Harper came to see me.’
‘What, at the embassy?’
‘Yeah. And . . .’ He frowned, puzzled. ‘Baxter was with him.’
‘What was he doing there?’ Bianca asked, surprised.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t speak to him, but he arrived with Harper – I’m certain it was him.’
‘What did Harper say to you? That what happened wasn’t your fault?’
A pause. ‘No. The opposite.’
‘What?’
‘He blamed me for it. He said . . .’ Adam’s tendons tightened in a mixture of resurgent guilt, and anger. ‘He said I must have done something wrong. I made Qasid and his cell suspicious, so they realised the information I gave them was a trap. He said everything was my fault.’
‘That – that bastard!’ Bianca cried. ‘What did you do?’
‘I believed him. He’s the Director of National Intelligence – the only person above him in the chain of command is the President. If he says you’ve screwed up . . .’
‘But did you screw up? Did you do anything wrong?’
‘No – not that I can remember. But . . .’ He fell silent, deep in thought. ‘Qasid wasn’t suspicious of me. He believed my cover story – and he believed that the information I gave him about the Secretary’s visit was genuine. He and al-Rais used it to plan the attack.’
‘So you gave them the real itinerary?’
‘No, that’s just it! I gave them exactly what I was supposed to. I was working with one of the embassy staff – a CIA agent. He gave me the files that I passed to Qasid.’
‘Maybe he was the one who screwed up.’
‘There’s no way of knowing,’ said Adam, shaking his head. ‘He’s dead. He died in the bombing.’ Another frown. ‘But he wasn’t directly involved with the Secretary’s visit – he shouldn’t have been in the convoy . . .’
‘Did you actually read these files?’ asked Bianca.
‘Yes – I had to, in case Qasid asked me any questions about them. But . . .’ He searched his newly reacquired memories. ‘I didn’t know what the genuine itinerary was going to be – I didn’t need to.’
‘So if you’d given Qasid the real files rather than the fakes, you’d have had no way to know that, would you?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘So it wasn’t your fault, no matter what Harper told you. God, the more I learn about him, the more I hate him!’
‘You’re not alone,’ said Adam. ‘It was just him and me in an interrogation room. But he wasn’t interrogating me – it was more like an inquisition. He just kept on and on, hammering it into me that I’d fucked up. And finally I . . .’ His face filled with shame. ‘I cracked, just broke down in tears in front of him. I couldn’t take it any more. The guilt was too much.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘I wanted to die.’
He released his grip on Bianca’s wrist, but she kept hold of his hand, squeezing it in sympathy. ‘What did Harper do then?’
An almost sarcastic exhalation. ‘He offered me a job.’
‘What?’
‘Not right away. First he ordered me back to Tampa – SOCOM headquarters – to be debriefed. In isolation; I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody except the intelligence officers doing the debriefing. I couldn’t even call my mother. And the agents were nearly as bad as Harper, just saying over and over again that I’d screwed up the mission. I was practically on suicide watch by the time Harper saw me again.’
‘And that’s when he told you about the Persona Project?’
‘Yeah. He said it was a way that I could . . . God, he actually used the word “atone”, for my mistakes and go on serving my country – and have my pain and guilt taken away. And I was hurting so much that I took him up on it. I would have . . .’ He cleared his throat, the very feelings that had been erased along with his past returning. ‘I’d have done anything to make it stop.’
‘So you let them wipe your memory,’ Bianca said quietly.
He nodded, saying nothing for several seconds before finally whispering: ‘Does that make me a coward?’
‘No,’ she told him. ‘It makes you human.’
A bitter smile. ‘Good to know there’s something human about me. The cyborg secret agent without a past.’